CONTROLLED BY THE NUX VOMICA. 791 
discharging good purulent matter. The urine also voided less 
frequently. 
Continuing this treatment, at the expiration of three weeks I 
had gradually increased the dose of the vomic nut to two drachms 
twice a-day, when I withdrew the aid of the belladonna. I applied an 
extensive charge (cerate) over the loins and back, and, to the com- 
mon pitch, turpentine, and resin, at your suggestion, I added half 
an ounce of the pulv. cantharides to a pound of the cerate, and 
covered the whole with some short flocks of wool. From that time 
to the present date, I continued giving the vomic nut twice a-day, 
at first in combination with carb. ammonia, camphor, and the vege- 
table tonics, ginger and gentian ; afterwards, from a perusal of 
some neuralgic cases in the human subject, published in a medical 
journal, I was induced to combine with it the carbonate of iron, in 
doses of from ^ij to 3iv, and omit the carbonate of ammonia and 
camphor. 
I pursued this treatment up to the latter end of last month, by 
which time I had increased the dose of the nut to three drachms 
twice a-day ; and, my patient having so far recovered as to bear 
no evident traits of any disease (save a lankiness of form, and a 
continuance, though in a less degree, of that spasmodic action of 
one or other of the hind limbs, particularly the off, which, when 
raised, appears so straight and rigid as to lead one to imagine that it 
was shorter than its fellow, though it but little, or not at all, altered 
his natural action in walking or trotting), I now began to cur- 
tail my formula, and, relying on the tonic powers of the vomic 
nut, I omitted the other ingredients, and combined with each dose 
ten grains of powdered capsicum-berries. 
This, then, up to the present hour, is the history of a case pecu- 
liar to me. It is a disease over which the vomic nut has had a 
marked controul — aided, probably, by the belladonna ; and from the 
hour that I commenced giving it I date the gradual return of my 
patient from the precincts of death to health. 
He now is apparently free from pain ; the pulse and breathing 
natural; condition thriving ; and all that remains of disease is the 
spasmodic action (which I have described) of the off hind leg. 
While it affords me much pleasure to lay this case before the 
readers of your invaluable Journal, it encourages in my mind a hope 
that if you, or any of your readers, are aware of a medicinal agent 
likely to afford still farther relief in this once distressing case, by 
making the same known, it shall meet in my hands that consider- 
ation which I trust will convince its donor that I am not insensi- 
ble to a kindness received. 
There is no drug, the veterinary records of which are so maigrt 
as the nux vomica, and its essential principle, strychnia. Mr. Morton 
